Effective verbal interactions require a speech path and participant environment with good clarity and intelligibility. In telecommunication system interactions (TSIs), such as voice calls, the speech path may include, for example, participant biological components (e.g., mouth, ears), audio transducer components (e.g., microphone, speakers, earphones), and all transmission components (e.g., line, switching/routing device, signal processing, etc.). However, many telecommunication system interactions have voice clarity and speech intelligibility issues. When present, as a result of any element of the speech path, such issues may have a dramatic effect on the quality and outcome of the verbal interaction. For example, TSIs using mobile phones can become frustrating and ineffective when they involve voice clarity issues resulting from excessive background noise, or speech intelligibility issues resulting from echo. TSIs in a teleconferencing environment can suffer from clarity issues due to low volume on the part of one participant, or intelligibility issues due to signal clipping on the part of another. When present, these issues can increase frustration and dramatically reduce the productivity of all participants in the teleconference. TSIs in a contact center environment, where efficiency and customer experience are paramount, can be negatively impacted by even minor voice clarity and speech intelligibility issues which often lead to longer interactions, and a disproportionate share of repeat interactions, as participants have to invest more effort in understanding and resolving the issues that led to the interaction. Moreover, voice clarity and speech intelligibility issues often diminish perceived agent performance in a contact center interaction, as customers place the burden of intelligibility and efficiency on the contact center agent. These, and other TSIs, can be especially problematic when any of the participants has some degree of hearing loss.
Effective verbal interactions maintain an intensity balance between the channels, with each channel measuring within about 5 dB of the other. Fluctuations in intensity can cause participants to struggle to hear audible elements of an interaction, or can create harsh “noisy” events that disrupt conversational flow. Such fluctuations may affect interaction dynamics. For example, high-frequency attenuation, low volume, and/or the existence of background noise adversely affect speech intelligibility, requiring repetition and lengthening the duration of the interaction. Intermittent noises within telecommunications interactions may adversely affect cognition and bias thinking towards more negative states. Harshness and noise may also have detrimental effects on social behavior, increasing anxiety, decreasing the willingness to help, and increasing the risk of hostile behavior. This is particularly important as once voice clarity and speech intelligibility issues affect a single party in an interaction, negative effects may spread to all parties in that interaction.
The variety of voice clarity and speech intelligibility issues affecting TSIs has created an unmet need for systems and methods to enhance voice clarity and/or speech intelligibility in real-time.